6-month stay granted in Picasso legal dispute
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December 3, 2004
CHICAGO -- A federal court in Chicago Thursday granted a motion by the
defense for a six-month stay in a dispute about the ownership of a Picasso
painting.
U.S. District Judge David Coar granted the stay until May 2 so the
California Supreme Court can have time to decide a related lawsuit. The
dispute centers on questions about who owns "Femme en blanc" ("Woman in
White"), a Picasso oil painting valued at more than $10 million. Authorities
in Europe say the Nazis looted the work of art in 1940. Thomas C. Bennigson,
of Oakland, Calif., heir to a survivor of the Holocaust who owned the painting
and who is the defendant in the Chicago federal case, says he is its rightful
owner. Marilynn Alsdorf of Chicago claims to be the owner.
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